Before the death of her first son, Evelyn Daye Tappley had generally been liked by her servants. She'd never been an especially warm woman but she was fair and tolerant, and always remembered birthdays and always tried to be accommodating when a maid or cook had family matters to attend to, and she was certainly liberal in the salaries she paid.
But this was many years ago, and in a mansion on the other side of Chicago.
Her husband Clark had died tragically in a car accident sixteen months following the death of young David. The police and family friends alike found the accident suspicious. Clark had been a virtual teetotaler, but on this night his alcohol content measured far in excess of the legal limit. 3He'd been alone, driving a familiar stretch of road, when his car left the highway and slammed into a tree at an approximate 75 mph. The coroner ruled the death accidental.
Three days after his death, in the Madison Street building from which he oversaw the family railroad dynasty (thank God his grandfather had decided to haul freight instead of humans), Evelyn found a letter in the middle drawer of the large oak desk she had given him the day he assumed the presidency of the corporation. Nothing in the note surprised her. In the past year, Clark had been subject to insomnia, depression, frequent impotence, frightening rages and curious lapses of memory. And crying jags. She had never seen a man cry so long or so hard. She comforted him when she could but he was beyond comfort. Their minister said it simply: 'He doesn't seem to be able to get over David's death.' And it was that simple. And that profound.
Margaret Connally was let go, of course. While Clark didn't blame her for David's death, he still couldn't bear to look at her because all he saw was David in his playpen and the timber rattler striking. The two other children had been Evelyn's idea. She was pregnant with Doris when Clark took his life. As for the note itself, it read:
Dear Evelyn,
I couldn't have asked for a dearer wife or better mother of my children. Please understand that I can no longer bear up under my pain.
I'm hoping that all those Sunday school stories of my youth are true, that I will soon be reunited with my little boy David once again. Please destroy this note and don't share its contents with anyone. I don't want the lives of Peter and our new baby ruined before they get started. With all my love, darling,
Clark
The mansion held too many memories for Evelyn and so, in the spring following Clark's death, she took her son and baby Doris to live on the former Piermont estate, a vast place of native stone situated high in the hills. As if nature with its rocky cliffs and impenetrable pines had not already made the place sufficiently inaccessible, Evelyn surrounded it with a high spiky wall and hired guards to patrol the perimeter twenty-four hours a day. Inside the mansion were all the latest electronic inventions to detect smoke and burglars. She owned one of the first security video camera set-ups in the world.
Evelyn became a recluse. No more Junior League, no more charity functions, no more trips abroad. She would always blame herself for what had happened to David. If she had devoted all her time to him, instead of trifling with things such as gardening, her son would still be alive today. As would her beloved Clark. To make up for her great sinto wash, as it were, David's blood from her handsshe decided to devote every single waking moment to her children. They would never be out of her sight for more time than was absolutely necessary. They would never have secrets, for secrets meant that they could get into trouble without her knowing it, and they would live lives inextricably bound up with her own so that they could become a family such as the world had never seen before. Never again would she trouble herself with her own selfish pleasures. She would concentrate on her children completely.
And so she did.
And by the time Peter was four, the snickers and smirks and clucks of concern could be heard among those few friends who still had any contact with her at all.
She was too much of a good mother, Evelyn was. In wanting to protect her children'Now, you're sure you don't feel as if you're coming down with anything?' she'd sternly ask anyone who called to say they might drop byshe became their jailer. Peter was rarely allowed to play outdoors, and then only when he was accompanied by his mother. Doris fell from her bicycle when she was five years old and was not allowed to ride another one until she was twelve. Evelyn even controlled their pleasures. Peter, for instance, took painting lessons and piano lessons and dancing lessonsexactly what a refined and sophisticated mother would wish for her son, but not necessarily what a boy would pick if he had any choice in the matter. Doris was turned into a parody of old-fashioned 'female' virtur. She was taught to cook, sew, serve tea, sit quietly as Evelyn and Peter discussed things (Peter was David's surrogate, and as such he would always be more important than Doris), and to look pretty and proper even when she was running a fever or hacking her way through a terrible cough and cold.
And so they had their little world.
The children were taken to and from school in an imposing black limousine driven by a liveried driver who packed a snub-nosed. 38 in a shoulder-holster. School friends visited only occasionally, and rarely did Evelyn approve of them. She encouraged her two children to be not merely brother and sister but best friends. Even when they were in high school, Peter and Doris hung out together. You saw them at the movie theater, the malls, the high-school games. There were a lot of jokes about them. They were both strikingly good-lookingindeed, they looked a great deal alike, with that kind of blue-eyed blondness that verges on the almost too-perfectand they were quiet and insular to the point that many considered them arrogant.
When college came, Evelyn went through the charade of honoring Peter's wish to go to Harvard, but she had her doctor concoct an illness for her that would make Peter want to stay closer to home. He ended up going to Northwestern, as would Doris in a few years, and carried on living at home.
Three years after finishing college, Peter married Jill and his life wasat least as Evelyn saw itforever ruined. Much against her will, Evelyn accepted Jill and invited her to become one of the family here on the estate. But Jill was coarse and of the world. After a year of this, she wanted to take up her old occupation of professional photography again. Work in the city. Oh, she'd come back home every night but invariably she'd bring with her the sins of the citythe violence, the disease, the vulgarity. The spirit of the mansion would be violated.
At this time, Peter began killing women. But Evelyn knew who was really to blame. Jill had betrayed Peter's faith. He'd always assumed that she would be happy living every day in the mansion, not needing to see othersespecially not 'city' othersand when she betrayed him, Peter went insane and started stalking women…
At the same time that Rick Corday was going to check the contents of his shed, Evelyn Daye Tappley was just coming out of the front door of her mansion.
Her two servants, the pair who had been with Evelyn even while her husband had been alive, watched the small but robust woman go down the front steps and walk over to the shiny black 1951 Packard sedan that had belonged to Clark. His favorite car. And she kept it perfect.
She climbed in and started the engine. It ran flawlessly. She had it serviced every 1,000 miles.
The servants watched as she drove down to the gate where a gray-uniformed guard stepped forth. He gave her a little salute and then opened the gate.
Moments later, she was gone, headed west into the tall timber where the mausoleum lay, the mausoleum in which both Clark and David now rested, moved here when she came to this estate. Of course, now there was a third person interred therePeter. Following his execution, she had brought the casket back here.
No matter what the weather, Evelyn drove into the timber once a day to pay her respects.
The servants looked at each other now and shook their heads. It was very sad, what Evelyn had done to her children in the name of protecting them.